


Happy Easter

by fringeperson



Category: Neko no Ongaeshi | The Cat Returns
Genre: Don't copy to another site, F/M, Haru runs an orphanage, I had no idea what I was doing when I wrote this and I know better now, Old Fic, but I have no idea what orphanages are like so..., but I'm not going to deny its existance just because it's old and bad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:29:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 6,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27449407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fringeperson/pseuds/fringeperson
Summary: It's Easter, a time traditionally associated with death and rebirth, and commercially associated with chocolate and rabbits.~Originally posted in '08
Relationships: Baron Humbert von Gikkingen/Yoshioka Haru, Hiromi/Tsuge (Neko no Ongaeshi)
Kudos: 2





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I warn you again, this is Very Old Writing - and I haven't changed anything except a couple of typos.

A gong sounded, summoning all the children to the woman who was holding it. There was a smile on her face as she looked at them all.

"Time for the egg hunt!" she told them, happily.

Squeals of joy were the response from the crowd of children ranging from four years old to the ripe old age of nearly ten.

"Does everybody have a basket?" she asked, searching for any child that had missed out, but none had – they were all waving their brightly coloured paper baskets above their heads. The woman was glad that the fake straw was stuffed firmly in and wasn't falling out, there would be enough mess after this party without fake straw everywhere.

"There are eggs hidden all over the garden, all wrapped up in coloured foil, and I don't want to see _anyone_ stealing another's eggs. Am I clear?"

"Yes Miss Haru," the little ones chorused.

"Run along then," she said, holding the door open for them to rush out into her little garden.

"It's a good thing the only plants you have are the indestructible kind," observed another woman, her skin more tanned, her hair bleached from the sun.

"You know me Hiromi," answered the one the children had called Miss Haru. "I've got brown thumbs. The only _remotely_ delicate plant I keep is on my windowsill."

"Yeah, your bonsai is really a thing of beauty Haru. Have I mentioned how jealous I am?"

"Miss Haru! Miss Haru!" cried a little girl as she ran up to the women leaning against the door frame. "I found this in the garden, is it supposed to be there?"

Haru stooped down to look more closely at the thing the child was waving about.

"No Yuko, it's not. Thank you for finding it," Haru said, taking the mud-covered object from the also muddy child. "You'd better get back to the egg hunt now though, or all the chocolate will be gone."

The girl gave a distressed cry and ran back out into the garden.

"How can you tell _what_ it is, Haru, let along whether it's supposed to be in the garden? It's covered in _muck!_ " Hiromi exclaimed, looking at what was apparently a stick of mud in her best friend's hand.

Haru straightened and removed a handkerchief from her pocket – she had many of both today, the children would invariably make mess all over themselves as well as everything else – and started to wipe the mud away.

"I can tell, Hiromi, the same way that I can tell about the weather, and matching orphan children to adopting couples, and how I knew that Tsuge was going to propose to you last week," answered the brunette, her chocolate-amber eyes soft as she busied herself with her task.

"All of which are still a mystery to me," quipped the tanned blonde in an accusatory tone. "Just tell me, alright?"

"I don't keep anything in the garden on a day-to-day basis _except garden_ , and _this_ is not part of my garden," Haru explained. The worst of the mud was wiped away now, and the women could see that it was a statuette, a figurine a little over a foot tall. "I'll finish cleaning you up after the children have gone to bed if that's alright," she said to the dapper figure now resting in her hands.

"I'd say he's handsome, but I think he has just a little too much facial hair," Hiromi said, looking past her nose at the thing.

"He's a cat, of course he has facial hair."

"How many cats do you know that wear suits?"

Haru didn't answer, but there was a smile on her face that Hiromi couldn't remember every having seen before – and they had been best friends for just about their entire lives.

"I'm going to put him in my room until after supper, you'll watch the kids while I run upstairs?" asked the brunette, her feet already pointing to the stairs, beyond which was her room.

"Course," the blonde answered with a wave.


	2. Chapter 2

Haru had lived alone once – right after her mother had given up fighting the cancer in her lung – but the peace of solitude had become like an oppressive prison, so she had invited Hiromi to live with her. That worked for a while, but then Hiromi had moved in with her boyfriend instead. Haru decided to move. Her tidy little house in the middle of the city, with an easy commute to anywhere, meant that she got a monthly income of about five hundred dollars – she had decided to rent it out, rather than sell it. Her new house, a big place that was almost in the country, had been more than a bit run down when she had bought it – ignoring the ghost stories that had kept it empty for the previous ten years. She had resolutely fixed it up herself – with help from friends when they had the time – and now it was a home for children, orphans to be exact.

They came to her, and she took care of them, loving them, feeding them, clothing them, giving them parties like this one. It was like a big family. All the children wanted parents of their own again of course, but until that happened, they all seemed to love their Miss Haru – even if they didn't all love sharing rooms or going to bed at eight-thirty, sharp.

Oh, they most of them went to school, yes, but there were still the ones that were too young for that, and then there was the after-school activities she was taxi-service to, so she made them go to be early so that she could have some time to herself. Even then, they interrupted her quite times a lot with the usual: nightmares, wet the bed, woke up thirsty, just couldn't get to sleep, monster under someone's bed, not always their own – monsters usually got the whole room full of children out of bed and up at her room.

Her room was in the attic. On the ground floor was the kitchen, the dining room, and the living room/TV room/play room, there was also a visitor's room, where Haru talked to couples and helped them with the paperwork. The second floor was where the boys slept and washed, the same for the girls on the third floor, and then Haru's floor, except that it was more like a tower room with extensions. There was a bathroom just for her – shower, tub, lavvy, sink, and a mirror-cabinet where she kept the strong medicines, the ones that had to be injected. The only medications anywhere else were the placebos (sugar pills) in the kitchen, and the prescription fillers on the very top shelf under lock and key where even Climbing Jun couldn't get to them. There were inhalers under the pillows of just bout every seventh child, but the kids knew better than to share those.

Also in her little tower room, Haru had a phonograph, a record collection – Hiromi had given her a hard time about those, suggesting that the brunette update her sound system. There was an old writing desk, three very comfortable chairs, her bed, a wardrobe, a bookshelf, and a window seat that had room for all sorts of her things. She loved just sitting on that window seat and reading while the world happened just beyond the glass. She usually got that hour's peace just after lunch, when the children who were still to young for school were taking a nap.

Now they were all in bed, after a long day of celebrating Easter – and chocolate. They had all gone down to church in the morning to learn about why they celebrated Easter, with an unusually stern mini-lecture before hand warning them to all behave. They didn't go to church every Sunday simply because Haru thought it would be too much for the teachers to deal with on a regular basis. She usually talked to them on Sunday mornings about God, though she wasn't ever really sure how much they understood and how much they were just learning by rote.

Now she had time to herself – Hiromi had gone home, the children were all asleep, and the brunette went to work getting the last of the mud off the statuette Yuko had found that afternoon during the egg-hunt.

" _How many cats do you know that wear suits?"_

Hiromi's words came back to Haru as she cleaned up the handsome cat gentleman, the secret smile returning also.

"Well, Lune and his Cat Guard were all wearing very smart uniforms, and Natori wore a long robe. Most of the court in the Cat Kingdom wore some kind of clothing, and then of course there's you," Haru said, talking mostly to herself as she wiped the last bit of brown off the orange gentle-cat's pale grey suit. She couldn't have given Hiromi that answer, the blonde would have thought she had finally lost her mind.

"I'd like to know what you were doing in my garden, covered in mud, if you please Baron," Haru said softly, padding barefoot out of her bathroom and into her bedroom. The woman set the doll on a high shelf in front of some books and turned to her wardrobe. Baron's presence or not, she fully intended to change into her nightgown and settle down in bed with the Agatha Christie novel she had picked up from the library two days before.

"I got lost," came the refined voice from her shelf.

Haru smiled as she heard him turn around so that he was facing the books rather than her changing.

"What a joke! I hope you will excuse me for not believing you Baron, but you don't get lost – even in the maze, you weren't lost," the woman said, reminiscing. Completely changed now, she took the living doll down from the shelf and let him down on her bedside table.

"No, Miss Haru," Baron paused, sitting down on the edge of the piece of furniture. "I _was_ lost – I was lost _without you_."

Haru had just been lying down between the sheets and getting comfortable, but the feline's words had her sitting up straight again, staring at him in wonder.

"It took me a while to realise it, and I'm sorry for that, but it's true –"

"I still love you Baron," Haru said, interrupting him. Her words were completely candid and she seemed slightly surprised that they had come out. "I told you when we parted ways that I had a crush on you. I wanted to be with you, but that was impossible, so I re-made myself to be like you – I started this orphanage, giving help and hope and love. I would still rather be with you than just like you."

"Miss Haru, may I stay also? Muta has moved on, Toto just watches the world go by, the Bureau seems so empty and cold when I compare it to the warmth of the love that fills this place."

Haru smiled and got out of bed again, opening the window seat and searching through it until her hands found what they were looking for. Returning to her bedside table, she put a tiny hallstand beside her lamp – the kind that could hold a hat, extra layers of clothing, and umbrellas or canes. In her other hand was a pillow, which she lay down next to hers on her bed.

Her book she lay down on the shelf under her bedside table before rolling over in the sheets again.

"Of course you can stay, goodnight Baron," she said, covering a yawn as her eyelids closed heavily over tired, soft brown eyes.

"Good night Miss Haru," he whispered back, hanging his hat and tailcoat up before turning off the bedside lamp with his cane. Cat eyes were most useful for letting the lady sleep while he finished his preparations for the same activity. At last, he leapt lightly down onto the pillow Haru had allotted him, found it incredibly comfortable, and was soon purring in his sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

" _Hey Kiddo, any chance of a Toto sandwich?" asked the large creamy cat as he wandered into her kitchen._

" _He'd give you indigestion, how about a tuna casserole, just for you?" she answered, taking a pot off the stove and pouring its contents into a large mixing bowl, which she put on the floor for Muta to eat from._

" _I'd rather see the end of old Birdbrain," he answered between mouthfuls._

" _Not gonna happen, Lard-Ball," croaked Toto from his perch on the top cupboard._

" _No fighting inside," Haru said sternly, glaring at the crow and cat in turn. "I've told Hoshi and Yin, and now I'm telling you. There_ are _consequences to fighting."_

" _Don't worry love, they'll behave themselves," a voice whispered from just behind her ear._

_Haru felt a pair of strong arms wrapping around her, and a velvety nose and furred face brushing against her cheek. She was just about to relax into his hold when the timer went off on the oven. It wouldn't stop either._

Haru blinked, the world was grey with pre-dawn light, and it was her alarm going off, not the timer on the oven. Groaning – she still wasn't a morning person – she rolled over to turn it off. It was still possible to get back to that dream, surely. It had been such a nice, warm, cozy dream – despite Toto and Muta having a go at each other.

Before she had extricated her arm from the folds of her thick woollen quilt, the beeping stopped, causing her to blink a couple of times. Okay, the alarm stopped itself when it had been going for a whole minute, but she didn't think it had been going that long. The woman looked again – Baron was sliding away from the timepiece back onto his pillow. It was easy to put two and two together and figure out that _he_ had stopped the thoughtless machine.

She sighed and "mm"ed and stretched a little as she looked up at him.

"Good morning Baron," she said, curling up in a different position on her bed. "How did you sleep? Or were you too asleep to notice?" Morning person though she wasn't, it was never too early to smile about something.

"Why do you make yourself wake up this early Haru?" the cat asked, also curling up on his pillow again.

"So that I have time to shower and dress before the children start charging around. It's Saturday, so soon we shall hear the pounding of many feet going downstairs to watch the morning cartoons. Not all of them are so awake in the mornings, but most of them will make the effort for their favourite animated heroes," Haru explained, closing her eyes softly. The woman took a deep breath, held it for a moment, then let it out again. Thus prepared for the day, she slipped out from between her sheets, grabbed some clothes, and headed for her bathroom.

The sound of softly pounding water and muted singing drifted under the door to Baron's ears as he lay there still.

The water stopped, the singing didn't. For a while it was pure and entrancing, then it was over taken by muffled humming. At last there was a sigh and the door opened again, revealing a clean woman of almost thirty with waist-length brown hair flowing over her shoulder as she braided it, and eyes the colour of dark amber. She was humming again too.

The attic/tower room started to shake. The sound of many pairs of small feet thundering down the stairs was reverberated up. Haru ignored it and continued braiding her hair, sitting down on her window-box-seat and smiling to herself as she watched the sun rise.

"Not going down yet, I take it?"

"No. One of the older children will turn on the TV, they'll all settle down and be hypnotised by the glowing screen for a couple of hours. Then the ones who prefer sleep will wander down and join them and they'll watch TV for another hour or so, then they'll be ready for breakfast and come looking for me to help with their first daily meal."

Baron went over what Haru had said in his mind, calculating how long that meant.

"About three hours of peace then," he said, rolling over in a very cat-like way on his pillow.

"Relative peace," Haru corrected absently. "Certainly, it's a great deal quieter than meal times, when they're all scrambling for seats and yelling at me about how their days at school were."

It was a terrifying prospect to most people, and at first Haru had been overwhelmed by it, the same as anyone else, but she had gotten used to it and now only answered to the quiet enquiries that were made during the silence of so many children eating busily. If she tried to keep track of what they were all yelling at her, she would go mad. The older children, and the ones who had been under her care longer, understood this.

"I don't know how you do it Haru," Baron said quietly, the sincere awe and pride warm in his voice.

"I don't know how you got me to dance all those years ago," Haru returned, looking back at him as she tied off her long brown tresses. "I couldn't before, and I haven't been able to since. I stopped altogether about ten years ago – pain has a way of demoralising."

The half-dressed cat-gentleman nodded his understanding. For Baron, half dressed meant wearing _only_ his cream shirt and grey slacks. Other views would be that he was still over-dressed for a regular feline.


	4. Chapter 4

"Alright you rabble!" Haru yelled happily at the children, hands planted firmly on her hips, arms akimbo and feet planted firmly apart. "Easter Saturday Picnic in one hour! You know what that means: _picnic stations!_ "

The children had congregated once more before the TV when breakfast was over – there were a couple more cartoons that happened later – but at Haru's words, they all went running. Over-nines went to the kitchen and started packing picnic baskets – Haru had already made sandwiches and filled thermoses with soups and warm drinks; five-to-eight-year-olds filled drink-bottles with water; children under five sought out the bats, balls, frizbies, hats and sun-screen. Haru collected her own hat from her room, as well as the first-aid kit – she hoped that she wouldn't need it, but there was always _someone_ who would fall down and scrape their knee or something like that.

"Picnic stations?" enquired the Baron quietly as he snuck out from beneath Haru's hair, making sure that none of the children were still in the room. She had been quite firm that he not be seen by them.

"It's easier for me, and a bit of fun responsibility for them, and nothing gets left behind this way either," she answered by way of explanation. "Hold tight, I'm about to flop," she added.

He didn't have time to ask what she meant, but held tightly to the base of her braid as she moved almost heavily over to a large couch, now vacant of the ten or so children that had been piled on and around it just five minutes before. She proceeded to fall backwards onto it. The couch went _oomph_ , and Haru sighed, closing her eyes to listen to the children being busy in the other rooms.

"Tired are we?" enquired the living statuette innocently as he stepped out onto her shoulder again.

"You were a witness to breakfast in this house Baron – don't tell me watching them doesn't make you feel just a _little_ old." Haru lay her head against the back of the couch, no longer having to worry about Baron hiding there. "And I get older every year," she added.

Baron pulled off his plain brown shoes and started pressing his socked feet heavily into the shoulder he was standing on, trying to knead the tension out of the woman who so captivated him.

"Mmm," she moaned contentedly, rolling her head away from the shoulder that was being worked. "That feels nice," she added, her words a different kind of moan, though just as content.

A minute later, Baron slipped under the braid and out again, onto the other shoulder, which he proceeded to treat the same way.

Both shoulders now loosened of the accumulated tension of nearly fifteen years, the cat hopped down to the seat of the couch and allowed himself to be picked up and deposited in the brunette's lap. There, he proceeded to snuggle down in a fashion somewhere between a cat and a child.

Haru smiled and slipped his shoes back onto his feet for him, wishing there were some way for her to return the favour.

Children slowly trickled back into the large living room, their focus on the TV, which Haru hadn't touched. She rose and headed out to the bus she had bought – it was an old bus that had once done routs around the city, but now it served her purpose of moving a large number of children – and their schoolbags or in this case, picnic stuff.

She started loading the baskets, bags, coolers, sports equipment and toys into the bus's spacious undercarriage, closing doors as the spaces filled up. When there was nothing left to load – except the children – she returned to her front door and, with her smile fixed firmly in place, told them all that it was time to go.

Baron stayed hidden under the long brown hair for the entire drive.

The children ran around the park almost wildly – playing games of tag, hide-and-seek, and all manner of other games – while Haru and Baron lay out the food on one of the larger picnic tables. Hiromi arrived with Tsuge just as Haru put down the last pile of sandwiches on the tablecloth.

"And they arrive just in time to not need to worry about helping," Haru said with a smile as she looked up at them. "We're one great, big, slightly dysfunctional family. Set a date _yet_?"

"June first," Hiromi answered, slightly defiantly, a triumphal smile on her lips.

"You sat down and argued about it last night didn't you? After I asked you yesterday," Haru quavered, sorry about having caused a fight, but glad to finally have a result.

"No apologies, we had to pick a date eventually, you just convinced me to sit him down and discuss it," the blonde ordered in her friendly, slightly bossy way.

"And it was a civil conversation," Tsuge added, his arm still around his fiancee's shoulders. "Not an argument."

"Alright then," Haru smiled. She cupped her hands around her mouth and called the children in. They would eat, then they would play some more, and Haru would wonder quietly about Hiromi and Tsuge adopting one of her charges. She loved them all dearly, but it was better for them all to have two parents all to themselves, rather than just her and swarms of friends all the time – including when they didn't want them.

"Hey Haru," Hiromi started, watching the children running around playing after they had eaten. Tsuge had gone with them, playing soccer with some of the older boys, deliberately playing a little badly now and then, but still showing off moves as he skidded the ball around them. "I talked to Tsuge about something else as well last night. He wants to wait a bit, let the honeymoon go on for as long as we can, but…"

"You told him about you not being able to have kids, huh?" Haru asked, though it was more of a statement.

Hiromi nodded sadly. "He'd really like to be a father, but I can't give him that. He still loves me, but I was wondering… could you set us up with one of yours around about Christmas time?"

Haru smiled, glad that she hadn't had to put the idea into Hiromi's head – it would have felt too much like manipulation and playing off a known weakness. It wasn't something she liked doing. It made her feel dirty.

"Tsuge would like a boy?" the brunette suggested, looking over at the tall man letting himself be toppled by the irrepressible Yin and his friends.

"I kind of think he'd like both," Hiromi answered. "A boy to rough-house with, and a girl to hold up to treat like a princess. I know I'd like a little girl, to teach her how to cook and play lacrosse."


	5. Chapter 5

Tsuge was keeping an eye on the boys, Hiromi was hip-deep in little girls, and Haru was taking the chance to lie down on a picnic blanket and catnap in the sun.

A smile drifted onto her lips as she thought that. She had always liked catnaps, until she had gone to the Cat Kingdom and nearly turned into one. After that, it hadn't been so appealing. Here in the sun though, with the sound of her orphans playing just were she couldn't hear what they were saying, and the blanket atop the thick green grass… it was just about heavenly.

"If you like catnapping so much, maybe you should grow whiskers and a tail," suggested a slimy voice from somewhere to Haru's left.

She knew that voice. Cracking one liquid brown eye slightly, she saw him: the ex-Cat King. He was barely a foot away from her left elbow, and smirking hideously as he stood there, staring at her, on all four paws.

The woman also saw Baron leap up at the king's memory-invoking tones, his cane held at the ready, preparing to fight the moth-eaten looking monarch.

"Go away, I refuse to make time for your disgusting advances," she said, absently grabbing him by the scruff of his neck and tossing him in the general direction of the waste-bin.

"I would never have associated you with a throw like that, wherever did you learn it?" asked Baron, settling down once more by Haru's ear, his green eyes locked on the ex-king as he retreated under a cloud of depression.

"Children's shirts are really very useful when they get into fights. Without actually laying a hand on them, you can pick them up and separate them. After that, it's a matter of scolding, sending them to different rooms, and enforcing their punishment. His moggy-ness is much lighter than a ten-year-old," explained Haru.

The cat gentleman hadn't quite been sure that it was an explanation, until she had gotten to that last part about the ex-king being lighter than a child. Of course – she hadn't spent the last fifteen years doing nothing after all.

Baron sighed, almost painfully aware of how much of her life he had not been part of. He was about to lose himself in thought when the sound of a sigh escaping Haru's lips drew his attention back to her – though she always had it, it just became more focused sometimes.

"Is something the matter?" he asked gently.

"We are at a strange sort of impasse," she answered, turning her head slightly to look at the man... cat... one that she loved. "I can't love you properly because I'm neither cat, nor Creation – and I can't change because I have so many children depending on me. I couldn't, and wouldn't, ask you to change either – being a human can be so ridiculously painful sometimes, not to mention hard."

Baron was silent for a long time, just staring at the blanket beneath them.

"Being a human is really so hard?" he asked at last.

"Mmhm. That's why we're given so many years to get used to it, to numb ourselves to some of the harder things, to learn in and grow in. Even when we grow up, there's still a lot to learn. Every day brings it's own challenges and hardships, as well as joys. I don't recommend it."

Haru sighed again and shifted on the blanket, sitting up.

"I love you just the way that you are right now Baron. Promise me that you won't ever change?"

He felt a lump lodge in his throat, and a sickening weight on his chest as he thought about what she had told him, what she was asking of him. He wanted to find out for himself – just for a day perhaps, being human and holding Haru to him. Yet, she wanted him to promise to not change, to remain true to the way he had been created. He swallowed the lump in his throat and tried to smile. Hadn't he once told her something very similar?

"I promise Haru," he said, gently stroking her hand as they sat together.

The smile she gave him almost made him want to break that promise, just so that he could hold her, but … she didn't _want_ him to change, and had said that she herself would like nothing better than to leave the human world behind. She was a woman now; she had experienced life and grown up. She wasn't a girl who clung to her humanity because it was hers, because she was frightened of what something else might bring.

"Always believe in who you are. I have done this, and I have nothing to fear, not even my heart when it twists inside me, ready to shatter at my own stubbornness," murmured Haru, lying down again and closing her eyes to doze in the sun.


	6. Chapter 6

" _I wish that I had something to leave to my orphans, but all I can do is leave them this reminder that I love them, and to never give up hope. Hiromi, it's all yours. The house in town, my money, my clothes if they will fit you – and my country house. I would ask that you care for the orphans as well, but I won't force them on you."_

"That's it," stated the lawyer, staring in a mildly surprised way at the will he had been reading from.

"What do you mean 'That's it'? There's got to be more to it than that!" Hiromi screeched, still in shock at having lost her best friend.

"I'm sorry Miss Hiromi, but the only other ink on this page is the late Miss Yoshioka's signature. My condolences on the loss of your friend, and my congratulations at your sudden increase in wealth," he said, rising from his seat at the head of the dining room table – at which all the children were also seated – and left the will with Hiromi.

The black-clad man left.

Some of the children had been sobbing quietly the whole time, others had just barely been holding back tears. Now, they all let it go. They were all orphans. For some reason or another, they had lost their parents – car accidents, abandonment, and so many more reasons – but now they had lost their kind Miss Haru as well. She had been a second mother to them, a first mother for some, and they had to cry.

Hiromi was crying just as helplessly as the children were, and even Tsuge had wet tracks running down his face as he sniffled occasionally.

It was a shock to them all. It shouldn't have happened. The brunette had only been putting the picnic things back in the bus when the car had come screaming around and knocked her down. The driver had been drunk, and Haru had been unable to move, call for help, anything, until five minutes later, Hiromi had gone looking for her. She'd called the hospital at once, and an ambulance had come.

Tsuge drove the children back to Haru's big country house, while Hiromi rode with her best friend, holding her hand the whole way. The brunette never reached the emergency room. The medic in the back picked up his radio and sadly informed the driver to change course, then the hospital that they needn't prep for this emergency. It was over.

Hiromi had stayed with Haru, held her lifeless hand until the robed men told her she couldn't go any further. Tears stung her eyes as the coroner began his examination, and she turned away. She couldn't bear to watch him butchering her friend.

"Tsuge," Hiromi whispered, clinging to his warm presence now, at Haru's table, with Haru's children, but without Haru herself. "We don't know how to…"

"Shh, I know," he whispered back. "I'll make some calls so that they stop coming, and we can try and get them all to good homes as quickly as possible. I think that would be best for all of us."

Hiromi nodded and held tightly to her fiancee, absently wrapping her arm around the child that had crawled into her lap looking for comfort.


	7. Chapter 7

Baron didn't know what to do now. His Haru was gone, dead, killed in an horrific accident.

He had slipped onto the bus numbly, hiding as it drove back to her house, then slipped out again and run with tears in his green eyes up to her room. There, he had flung himself onto her bed, immersing himself in the sweet smell of her.

The tears flowed even more freely. He would never see her sweet smiling face, her beautiful brown eyes, ever again. Talking with her, feeling her touch, listening to her hum as she showered, all things of the past now, and they hurt. Being here, surrounded by her, yet knowing she was gone, that hurt too.

The tears were not enough – he cried out, let sobs wrack his body, called her name in despair and wished for some way to ease the pain.

" _Look at that smile," she said, a grin of her own plastered across her face as she watched a little girl running after a pink frizbie. "You wouldn't think to look at her that she lost her parents only last month."_

" _How?" he asked, unable to stop the question from escaping him._

" _An explosion at a refinery. There was a big fire, and both her parents were trapped inside. She did nothing but cry for a week when she first came to me, and now… She won't ever be quite the same again, her soul was shattered, and not all the pieces fit back together in quite the same way afterwards, but I'm glad to see her smiling."_

He had marvelled then, as he set out sandwiches and talked with Haru, watching the children she cared for, getting pieces of their stories as they ran past, always smiling and laughing.

" _Always believe in who you are. I have done this, and I have nothing to fear, not even my heart when it twists inside me, ready to shatter at my own stubbornness."_

His advice. She had taken it to heart, and now he wondered if he would ever be able to give it again without breaking down into tears. Would he even be able to stand by it himself?

"Of course you can, Baron," a voice whispered. "You can do anything you want – you can, because you promised me that you would never change."

He looked up sharply, searching, hoping against reason, to find the source of the gently whispering voice and see her smiling at him again.

She wasn't there. The tears started to flow again.

"No tears love, no tears," the disembodied voice whispered.

"Why can't I cry? I miss you Haru, I miss you," he said, his voice a hoarse whisper filled with desperation.

"It doesn't suit you, that's why," the voice laughed softly. "You are the most beautiful person I ever met, and I love you for your strength of character, your belief in yourself and your abilities. Please don't cry, it breaks my heart, and that's all that I have left."

He ran. He couldn't bear it any longer. The pain of loosing her, the memories, the scent, the sound of her.

He went back to the Bureau. Cold and empty though it still felt, it was better than all the sad, oppressive memories of her.

There was something different though – he could feel that something had changed. He searched the canary-coloured house until he found it. There, in his bedroom, just a little taller than him, a block of wood sat on the floor. It hadn't been there before.


	8. Chapter 8

A lump of wood, and beside it, arranged neatly on his bed, a collection of carving tools.

" _Whenever someone creates something with all of their heart, that creation is given a soul."_

He wasn't an artisan. He had never tried _making_ anything, not like this. He knew how it was done though. Baron could remember sitting on the shelf and watching his maker turn his hand to other things – gifts, commissions, every day pieces to sell in the shop. The gentleman cat swallowed, took off his hat and coat, and stared at the block for a while before he finally picked up a mallet and chisel.

"I don't know what I'm doing," he whispered to himself. "But I've got to try. I need Haru."

Wood chips fell away, a tick form started to take shape, but it wasn't Haru. It was rough, mostly formless, he would have to go deeper into the wood before he found the woman he was trying to bring back from the dead.

Easter Saturday, he worked at that wood until he couldn't see straight. He curled up around the base of the statue, unfinished, and cried himself to sleep, crying all the more as he remembered that she didn't want him to cry.

When he woke, aching and tired to the sound of the very earliest birdsong, it was still dark outside. He got up anyway; he needed Haru – her face, her smile, he way of knowing exactly what to say just when it needed to be said.

He must have worked on the wood as he slept; it was more finished than he remembered. It still wasn't done, but it was getting closer. He chose a finer chisel and summoned the already painful memory of Haru's smiling face. He had to bring her back, before the memories hurt so much that he started to wish that he had never even met the girl.

" _I couldn't, and wouldn't, ask you to change either – being a human can be so ridiculously painful sometimes, not to mention hard."_

He knew now. He had spent a day in the human world, and the pain he felt was sufficient to drown out all the happy memories he had.

Baron sniffed and fought the tears, for her sake, as he started to sand her smooth. Then the paint. He looked down at her beautiful, light form, and longed for her braid to be soft, her eyes to be lit with that inner glow, and that smile to be more than just his carving. The sun went down, and he cried himself to sleep again. If she didn't wake, he didn't know what he would do – he wouldn't be able to live with the sight of her, forever frozen as wood, any more than he thought he would be able to survive long with the knowledge that she was truly dead.

She _mustn't_ be dead.


	9. Chapter 9

Saturday she died, Sunday he fought back his tears and tried desperately to bring her back, Monday… Baron looked up at the work of the previous two days, and she looked back down at him.

"I woke up at midnight," she said, bending down. "You were asleep, and I didn't want to disturb you. Thank you, love."

"Haru!" he cried, his voice raw from crying, his green eyes rimmed with red. He flung his arms around her.

"Shh, it's alright, I'm here," Haru said softly, stroking his back gently and holding him to her. "Easter is a time of rebirth after all," she added. "And what did I say about crying?"

A choked sound, a cross between a sob and a laugh, burst from his lips and he held her tighter.

"Don't ever leave, I'm always so lost without you."

"Hey, I'm not going anywhere," the brunette said. "Not this time, not ever again," she added, more softly, pulling him gently away so that she could study his face. It had been so long since she was the right size to hold him like this, study his face like this, and now…

Haru smiled, running her fingers through the fur on his cheek, and kissed him gently, softly, purely, lightly, it was barely a kiss at all, but their lips met, and it took their breath away to feel that fleeting touch.

Baron wrapped his arms all the more tightly around her. He would never let her out of his sight again, not ever.


End file.
